@bleedingdirt, awesome photo! I kept thinking I should take photos of the anatomy of some of my grafts. I lost a tree last year that had excellent growth of the T-buds. You beat me to it and did better than I would have done.
I"m trying to take a lesson from the growth of the wood layers. It looks like there is growth of the bud cambium as well as the stock. I’m not sure I’m reading that right.
Weatherman, T-budding is fun. I’ve had good results although a lot of people here don’t like that method. Please keep us updated about your fruit salad tree - we never know unless we try.
The closer to bud break that you graft the higher your odds of success. You may end up being a little too over zealous with December grafting. Will be interesting to see how this turns out from both a compatibility standpoint as well as keeping those scions alive long enough for the tree to come out of dormancy.
I agree with @speedster1 as I tried grafting completely dormant stone fruits and mulberries one year and lost the entire crop. Guessed my spring time wrong and thought as soon as I grafted the trees they would start leafing out but as it turned out it got colder and stayed cold. The pears and apples had an 80% take rate that year so it hurt me on pomes also.
Took some pics of a few of the T bud grafts I did last summer. I felt it was a easy and forgiving graft for me. I played around with it and didn’t take much care when dong it (sometimes not even wrapping the graft) and almost every one made it. That is if they leaf out next spring!
Chartman, I hope your T-buds take off and thrive this year. I got 100% take for plums, 50% take for sweet cherries, and zero % take for lilacs and peaches. For whip and tongue, the plums were 100%, cherries zero % and also zero % for peaches. I didn’t try T- buds for apples and pears because the whip and tongue were so easy for those.
All four of my Santa Rosa T-buds are hopefully alive! I know I should have waited till the bud grew before pruning the branch above it. I was collecting scion wood and totally forgot about these little guys.
you could also make something very similar to those metal tags using aluminum coke cans. They are thin enough to be cut with scissors and a hole punch.
